Washington, – US Attorney General William Barr announced on Tuesday that he will deny the possibility of parolees to detained asylum seekers pending their progress in immigration courts.
The decision reverses a protocol that has been in effect since 2005 and which gives asylum seekers a “credible fear” of being able to submit to an immigration hearing that allows them to be released on a provisional basis.
Barr ordered that the new protocol take effect in 90 days to give time to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to enable spaces to keep detained asylum seekers, arriving each month in tens of thousands.
It will be the DHS, however, who will have the final decision on whether or not to keep these immigrants detained based on their available resources.
The new protocol will not affect unaccompanied minors or families with children, since a 1997 judicial agreement known as “Flores” does not allow minors to be detained for more than 20 days.
Nor will it affect the undocumented who request asylum in the ports of entry, only those detained after crossing the border irregularly.
Organizations for immigrant rights have already announced that they will appeal the decision, thus opening a new front in the long legal battle waged by the Donald Trump government against the current immigration regulations.
The decision announced today by Barr is in line with Trump’s strategy to try to stop the arrival of immigrants to the United States.
Among other things, Trump intends to end the practice of “catch and release” (catch and release), which consists of releasing the undocumented detainees after crossing the border while waiting for an immigration court to examine their deportation.
The government is also engaged in a legal battle to send some asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for judges to make a decision about their cases in the US.
Trump believes that current practices allow tens of thousands of asylum seekers who are ultimately denied their petition to remain in the United States because, once released, they do not return to the authorities.
These strategies, however, have not been successful and the arrival of undocumented immigrants to the southern border, mostly from Central America, is at record levels in the last decade and has led the Border Patrol to recognize that its agents are overwhelmed. (EFEUSA)
